If your roof is giving you repeated trouble, Newmarket Roofers carries out complete roof replacements for homeowners in Mildenhall and the surrounding villages.
Call any time. Calls are answered day and night and passed straight to our roofers.
A roof replacement is a significant job and most homeowners want to be sure they genuinely need one before committing. The honest answer is that a single leak or a handful of slipped tiles almost never calls for a full re-roof. But there comes a point where the underlying structure is failing, the materials have reached the end of their life, or the cost of constant repairs outweighs the cost of starting fresh. Knowing which side of that line you are on is the most useful thing we can help you work out.
A complete re-roof means stripping everything back to the bare timbers, inspecting the roof deck and structural rafters, replacing any sections that have rotted or weakened, and then re-covering with new materials. Done properly, it is the most reliable long-term fix available and removes the cycle of reactive patching that drains money year on year.
None of the signs below means replacement is automatic, but each one is worth taking seriously. The more of them you can tick off, the stronger the case for a full survey.
Understanding why a roof deteriorates helps you ask the right questions and spot poor-quality work before it happens to you again. The causes are almost always one or a combination of the following.
Rain soaks into porous tiles or the mortar bedding, then freezes overnight. Water expands by around nine per cent when it turns to ice. Over many winters, this process - called freeze-thaw cycling - physically breaks apart tiles, splits ridge mortar and forces open any small crack in a flashing. Concrete tiles are particularly susceptible once the surface carbonation layer has worn away, because the underlying concrete is far more porous.
Beneath your tiles or slates there is a layer of roofing underlay - on older roofs this will be bitumen felt, on roofs done in the last couple of decades it is more likely a breathable membrane. Bitumen felt becomes brittle with age and UV exposure. Once it tears or splits along the laps, water that gets past the tiles has a direct route into the roof space. Because the felt is hidden, homeowners often do not realise it has gone until a significant leak develops. A full re-roof always includes new underlay, which is one of the strongest arguments for replacement over continued patching.
Roof tiles hang on horizontal timber battens nailed across the rafters. If the underlay below has been failing for a while, those battens are likely to have been intermittently wet. Wet timber rots. Rotten battens cannot hold tile nibs securely, which is exactly why tiles begin slipping in clusters rather than individually. New battens are included in any proper re-roof, sized and spaced correctly for the tile being laid.
Wherever your roof meets a wall, a chimney, a dormer or a valley, the junction is sealed with flashing - almost always lead on a domestic roof. Lead is an excellent material but it does move with temperature changes, and over decades the fixings can work loose, the lead can crack at stress points, or poorly fitted original flashings can simply reach the end of their effective life. Failed flashing is one of the most common entry points for water, and on a very old roof it often makes sense to replace or re-dress all the leadwork at the same time as re-roofing rather than leaving aged lead in place.
A roof installed without adequate head lap, with the wrong batten gauge, or with battens not treated for exterior use can fail well before its material life is up. If you have a roof that seems to have been causing problems since it was done, or one where the tiles are technically in good condition but keep slipping, the installation itself may be the root cause. A re-roof done to the correct specification resolves this permanently.
Before any work starts, scaffolding goes up. A scaffold is not optional - it protects both the workers and your property, and it allows materials to be moved safely. Any roofer proposing to re-roof your home from a ladder alone is not working safely and the result will reflect that.
The existing tiles or slates are stripped off and lowered to ground level for disposal or, where they are in sound condition, setting aside for reuse. The roof deck is checked thoroughly at this stage. Rafters and any areas of board or sarking felt are inspected, and damaged sections are replaced before anything new goes on.
New underlay is then fixed across the roof, lapped correctly at the joins so water cannot track sideways underneath it. Treated timber battens go on over the underlay, at the gauge specified for the tile being used. Tiles or slates are then fixed from the eaves upward, each course overlapping the one below by the correct head lap for the pitch of the roof.
Ridge tiles are bedded or mechanically fixed at the top, hips and valleys are dressed, and all flashings to chimneys and abutments are cut in or replaced. At the end the scaffold comes down and the site is cleared.
A straightforward re-roof on a semi-detached house in and around Mildenhall typically runs from around £5,000 to £10,000, depending on the size of the roof, the materials chosen, the extent of timber repairs needed and the complexity of the detailing. Larger detached homes or roofs with multiple valleys, dormers or chimneys will cost more. Get at least two written quotes and make sure each one specifies the materials by type and grade, includes scaffold, disposal and any known timber repairs, and sets out clearly what is and is not included.
Prices for natural Welsh slate are higher than for concrete or reconstituted slate tiles - there is more detail on material choices on our Haverhill page - but on a large or complex roof the labour cost is the bigger variable. Be cautious of quotes that are dramatically lower than others; they almost always reflect either thinner tile specification, cheaper battens, no scaffold allowance, or a plan to skip the underlay.
A re-roof is a practical time to look at the fascias, soffits and guttering at the eaves. The scaffold is already in place, so the additional cost of replacing tired timber fascias with uPVC, or fitting a new gutter run, is much lower than returning later. If your existing guttering is cast iron or old uPVC that has been leaking for a while, the fascia board behind it may have softened. It is worth having this checked while access is straightforward.
We carry out roof replacements across Mildenhall and the surrounding villages. If you are seeing any of the warning signs described above, the sensible first step is a proper inspection from roof level, not just a view from the ground. Call Newmarket Roofers to arrange a roof survey so you can make an informed decision about whether repair or full replacement is the right course.
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Call any time. Calls are answered day and night and passed straight to our roofers.
